Hearthstone Class Overview - Paladin

The Paladin class in Hearthstone is a class that works best by combining several cards into combos to boost their effect. A Paladin in Hearthstone functions in much the same way as the class does in World of Warcraft, by using AOE, healing, and defence. The class has several different cards that focus on each of those key abilities. Paladins are also one of only three class that can make use of Secret cards (the other two classes being Mages and Hunters).

As a Paladin in Hearthstone you will be represented by Uther Lighbringer, the great Alliance Paladin and founder of the Knights of the Silver Hand.

Hearthstone Hero Power - Paladin

As a Paladin your power is Reinforce. This ability costs 2 mana summons a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit to your aid.

While a 1/1 minion is nothing spectactular by itself, due to the nature of the Paladin class and some of the cards available to it, a 1/1 is a constant threat to your opponent.

Hearthstone Basic Cards - Paladin

When you first start a Paladin deck you will be granted many of the basic cards. In addition as you level up your Paladin deck you will gain the remainder of the basic Paladin cards by the time you reach level 10.

Hearthstone Expert Cards - Paladin

There are many more Paladin spells and minions than those listed above in the basic card section. These are the Expert cards and can be gained through the purchase or winning of expert card packs. Many of these cards are key to how the class plays and will be required to do well as a Paladin.

Expert Paladin Spells

Name

Rarity

Mana

Description

Avenging Wrath

Epic

6

Deal 8 damage randomly split among enemy characters.

Blessed Champion

Rare

5

Double a minion's attack.

Blessing of Wisdom

Common

1

Choose a minion. Whenever it attacks, draw a card.

Divine Favor

Rare

3

Draw cards until you have as many in hand as your opponent.

Equality

Rare

2

Change the health of ALL minions to 1.

Eye for an Eye

Common

1

Secret: When your hero takes damage, deal that much damage to the enemy hero.

Holy Wrath

Rare

5

Draw a card and deal damage equal to its cost.

Lay on Hands

Epic

8

Restore 8 health. Draw 3 cards.

Noble Sacrifice

Common

1

Secret: When an enemy attacks, summon a 2/1 defender as the new target.

Redemption

Common

1

Secret: When one of your minions dies, return it to life with 1 health.

Repentance

Common

1

Secret: When your opponent plays a minion reduce its health to 1.

Expert Paladin Minions

Name

Rarity

Mana

Attack

Health

Description

Argent Protector

Common

2

2

2

Battlecry: Give a friendly minion Divine Shield.

Aldor Peacekeeper

Rare

3

3

3

Battlecry: Change an enemy minions attack to 1.

Tirion Fordring

Legendary

8

6

6

Divine Shield. Taunt. Deathrattle: Equipe a 5/3 Ashbringer.

Expert Paladin Equipment

Name

Rarity

Mana

Attack

Dur.

Description

Sword of Justice

Epic

3

1

5

Whenever you summon a minion, give is +1/+1 and this loses 1 Durability.

Ashbringer

Legendary

5

5

3

[This weapon is only gained once Tirion Fordring is destroyed, it is not possible to obtain it as a card into your collection.]

Hearthstone Tips and Combos - Paladin

As with almost any card based game, there are combos available that when used provide more benefit than playing the cards by themselves. This is true in Hearthstone as well, and there are several great combinations of cards available to Paladins that can really help push the fight in your favour.

Let's start with a look at some of the things that you need to keep in mind as you play a Paladin.

All of your minions are dangerous, even your 1/1 minions. This is due to cards that can either boost your minions power or lower the power of your opponents minions.

When you gain a Sword of Justice, do not use it to attack with unless you really need to. It is far better used to boost minions that you summon.

Do not be afraid to lose some health early as you have many ways to gain it back later. In fact even before going outside of your class cards you have 2 different cards that grant 6 healing each and another that grants 8. That's up to 40 extra health per match if you get all of those cards in play.

Keep a minion in play as a threat as much as you can.

Many of your secrets are better saved for later in the game, the one exception being Noble Sacrifice. The others all have much more impact against minions or attacks in the late game.

Next up let's look at a few simple combos with the Paladin basic and expert cards, as well as some common cards.

The cards Equality and Consecration work extremely well together as they first weaken everything, and then kill all of your opponents minions, clearing the board for your attack.

Another similar combo is to use Avenging Wrath after an Equality.

Sword of Justice is a useful card before summoning any minion.

Hand of Protection or Argent Protector should always be used on your big minions to help protect them, but can also be used in the early game to keep a low level minion alive while clearing out an opponents minion so that you keep an advantage.

Once you get into more advanced play and combos, you can look at some general cards rather than just sticking with Paladin only cards. Here are just a few examples:

Sword of Justice is an amazing card just by itself and your normal minions. However one of the best uses of it is with the card Imp Master. It makes a good card, even better. Instead of a 1/5 Imp Master and five 1/1 imps, you can end up with a 2/6 Imp Master and up to four 2/2 imps and two more 1/1 imps. Instead of a minor annoyance, the Imp Master becomes a big threat.

Minions that increase your spell power can make a huge difference, especially with cards that affect multiple enemies like Consecration and Avenging Wrath.

Since none of the classes minions have taunt it is a good idea to pull in a few general cards to grant you this ability. Two really good choices are Defender of Argus and Sunfury Protector. Both minions give adjacent minions taunt.

Hearthstone Sample Decks - Paladin

The Paladin deck is a solid deck against all comers. It is able to deal with almost anything through its balanced approach to both attack and defence. While it does have some weaknesses, it is a really good deck for players to start the game with.

Paladin Deck - Generic Deck

The Paladin deck is a good all around deck, and one of my favourites. This is the deck that I have used to get to Diamond level in competative play.

Minions (9)

2x Aldor Peacekeeper

2x Argent Protector

2x Guardian of Kings

1x Hogger

2x Imp Master

Spells (17)

2x Avenging Wrath

2x Blessing of Kings

1x Blessing of Wisdom

2x Consecration

2x Hammer of Wrath

2x Equality

2x Humility

1x Lay on Hands

1x Redemption

2x Repentance

Equipment (4)

2x Truesilver Champion

2x Sword of Justice

The idea with this deck is pretty simple, keep the board clear early on as well as you can, and then finish your opponent off with a few big attacks. As you can see there are not a lot of minions so you really need to plan their use well. However, once you get the hang of playing that way, it really works out well.

Hearthstone Arena Tips - Paladin

Paladins are currently one of the best Arena classes due to the many very useful class cards and a solid class ability. To make the best use of the class ability, you should keep using it as often as possible. Since you can summon up an extra minion and it makes it possible to clear off enemy minions without using up your cards, therefore helping you keep a card advantage.

To help with your card advantage you should make sure that you watch for cards that can trade well. These include cards that either buff your minions or debuff your opponents minions. With proper use of buffs like divine shields or your big +4/+4 buff you can trade minions at an at least 2 to 1 card advantage in your favour. This will really help you get ahead in a game. On the flip side cards that reduce your opponents minions attack or health so that you can deal with them far easier than would otherwise be the case can get you ahead.

Paladins have access to several weapons, all of them are really good. If you get a chance make sure you draft at least a few, and make use of them to your advantage. This means keeping your Sword of Justice for buffing minions and not attacking. It also means using your Truesilver Champion to clear off enemy minions rather than hitting your opponent direction, unless of course it is to finish them off. This is because keeping a minion around that can attack multiple times is better than throwing them away so that you can hit your opponent once with a weapon.

As a Paladin you can pretty much play any style of game that you want in the Arena, it all depends on which cards show up in the draft phase. If the cards show up to play rush, go for it. If a lot of control type cards show up grab them and play that style of game. If some of your classes really big minions show up, go ahead and play an end game style game, Paladins have some of the best late game cards with the biggest being Tirion Fordring.

Hearthstone Top Arena Cards - Paladin

While the actual game play remains the same between constructed format play and arena play, the actual value and strength of specific cards can change drastically. This is due to the limited pool of cards that each player will have available to them. It is therefore important to understand which cards are of the most value in the Arena when drafting.

When playing in the Arena and drafting your deck, some of the best cards to draft for the Paladin class are as outlined below along with some reasoning. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Aldor Peacekeeper - This is a great trading card. Used mid to late game it can destroy your opponents attack power. Great uses include any 8/8 or best of all the Venture Co. Mercenary since at 1 attack he can be ignored, but still leaves its downside kicking around.

Argent Protector - A solid minion for the Paladin class. 2 mana for a 2/2 minion that grants another minion a Divine Shield makes this one that should be grabbed as often as it comes up.

Consecration - A really good AOE damage card, for 4 mana you can deal 2 damage to all enemies. Team this up with Equality and you can kill everything the enemy has out.

Equality - This is a great spell as it makes every enemy minion killable by your lowly Paladin class summoned 1/1 minion. The only down side is that it affects your minions as well, but timed well it is still well worth it.

Sword of Justice - A must have weapon, not to attack with, but to buff your minions. It is essentially a 5/5 miniondue to the buffs that it hands out.

Tirion Fordring - The best class bassed legendary, hands down. If he shows up in your draft phase for Arena, you need to grab him. If not silenced he can deal out a huge amount of damage between himself and the weapon granted from his death rattle.

Truesilver Champion - This is almost the perfect weapon. You should grab as many as come available in the draft. For 4 mana you can attack twice for 4 damage each time, and heal 2 damage each time. Amazing card value.

You can also find a listing of the general non-class specific cards that are the best to draft in the arena format in these two guides:

Comments on Paladins in Hearthstone

As with almost any game there are multiple paths to victory. If you have alternate ideas on decks or methods to use the basic or expert cards for the Paladin class in Hearthstone, please feel free to share them in our comment section below.

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.